


Durasteel

by imsfire



Series: Droid Week 2018 [5]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Fluff and Feels, Gen, exploring your possible freedoms, getting used to peacetime after years of war, holiday impulse decisions, tattoos for droids, worries about being considered a collaborator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 10:20:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15638763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: K-2 has accompanied Cassian and Jyn on their vacation, but they keep doing organic-specific activites.  He's feeling at a bit of a loose end when he sees an engraver's workshop.





	Durasteel

**Author's Note:**

> For day six of Droid Appreciation week on tumblr; prompt Vacation.  
> Inspired by a wonderful piece of fan art I now can't find, which showed almost exactly the scene this story describes. If anyone knows the image I have in mind, please hit me up so I can give the artist proper credit and a thank you for inspiring me.

Nauga Hautouen was by no means a fan of the Empire, neither their bigotry nor their methods.  But there was no avoiding the fact that their passion for matt-finish grey durasteel had meant business was steady during the occupation.  Durasteel doesn’t take paint well, but engraving is quick, permanent, and clearly visible, and Nauga was an engraver.  An engraver with three young children to feed.  Five years she’d held her voice civil and her expression courteous, and kept her workshop open and her family alive. 

She’d put their welfare ahead of her people’s liberty, and stars forgive her, she’d probably do the same a thousand times.  What good would freedom have done her young’uns if they were dead? 

Just the same, it would be good to have a clear conscience again.

Just like it would be good when this promised economic uptick materialised finally.  There were signs of it, but nothing terribly concrete as yet.  Everyone talked about the peace dividend as though it would be a thing near-miraculous.  It just seemed it was going to take a while longer coming than they’d been promised. 

Still, life was beginning to settle down again, and normal things were happening.  People still needed to work and feed themselves, mend roads and build new housing, send their offspring to school, dig their gardens.  Jobs came in, not enough for a savings plan but she was paying her bills now.  Things were getting better and Nauga was starting to believe they’d get better still.

She was just settling down to her main job of the day, putting the winner’s name on the shield of a silver prize cup from a children’s swimming contest.  It was a nice order, for all it was a one-off; the school wanted their name and their emblem of two tooka-cats rampant above the name and date, the whole design to be encircled with a wreath of gani-leaves, the traditional symbol of victory.  Fine cutting like that commanded a good rate even as piece-work, and it was a pleasing challenge to her skills when most weeks all she got to do was standard lettering in blocky capital letters, or the occasional swirl of italics.

She had a diamond-tipped engraving stylus on the kit, whirring on high power, and she was putting in the first outlines of the design when the door creaked and a shadow fell across her workbench.  She looked up.  Into the expressionless cold optics of a gigantic droid. 

 _Oh stars, no…_  

Five years she’d kept her head down, and now in peacetime she was being picked up by a Force-damned police enforcer? 

What was worse, she had no idea what she could have been accused of.  _Please, please let it not be collaborating.  I know I wasn’t a fighter but I never outright collaborated._

“You are Nauga Hautouen, the engraver, the owner of this business?” said the droid.  It had a cool, acerbic tone, as if it found dealing with criminals an exasperating task.

Nauga pulled down her safety mask with shaking fingers. “Yes…”  She powered-off the little cutting pen, since it wouldn’t be much use against an opponent this big.  Her heart was pounding. 

But if this was an arrest, it was strange that the thing was by itself, no law-men or New Republic soldiers accompanying it.  She swallowed.  _Steady, stand steady, woman, wait and see, the war is over, you never collaborated outright…_

The droid had come right into the workshop.  It straightened up and stood staring down at her, and then round at her tools, at the drills and burins, the bin of metal shavings, bottles of lubricant for wet-cutting and wet-and-dry polish for finishing.  It seemed almost curious.

Finally it tilted its unblinking gaze back upon her again. “I am K-2SO,” it said. “I’m a reprogrammed Imperial droid.”

“Ah, yes?” That sounded – less dangerous.

“Yes.  Your heart rate is still elevated.  This is unnecessary.  Please continue to calm yourself.  I will not harm you.”

Well.  That was – okay.  Yes, okay. 

The war was over.  Her worst nightmares of five long years were less likely to happen now, not more.  She had to remember that.

It was speaking to her quite civilly.  It said it wasn’t going to harm her.  And droids were generally truthful.  So it was reasonable to assume it also wasn’t going to arrest her.  In which case… 

Nauga took a deep breath. “How can I help?” she asked, only slightly breathless.

The droid tilted its head to one side expressively, then turned to dip a massive dark shoulder section towards her.  She saw the remains of an Imperial gear symbol, scarred but still legible, etched into the steel housing.

“Can you get rid of this?” K-2SO asked. “My services as an undercover operative are no longer required and I will gain satisfaction from no longer bearing an Imperial emblem.”

It wanted the emblem taken off.  A ex-Imperial droid in the free republic, and it wanted to show it. 

She remembered the story she’d seen on the holo-news a few months ago, at the liberation of Kashyyyk; once-enslaved Wookiees lining up outside a field hospital to have the tattooed identification numbers removed from their palms.

“Can you get rid of it?” the droid repeated. “There’s another one the same on the other side too.”

“Uh – yes.  Yes, I’m sure I can.  Half an hour with a flat burin should do the trick.”

“Excellent.  Do you require me to sit on the floor or will you be climbing on a ladder to  work?  You’re very short.”

“If you’d like to sit, that should work.” A reprogrammed Imperial droid with a sense of humour.  Yeah, nothing at all unnerving about that.

She set aside the silver cup and unplugged the pen fitting, slotted a different tool to her cutting-kit; wrung out her hands a couple of times to steady them; pulled her mask back down and leaned in to the job. 

The whine of chiselled metal filled the workshop and spirals of swarf scudded away into the detritus on the floor.

A droid making its own decisions, deciding it would gain satisfaction from changing its appearance.  Probably the oddest customer she’d ever had.  “Undercover operative, huh?  That sounds cool.” The droid wouldn’t need to be entertained the way she did when she’d had her tats done, wouldn’t need to have its mind taken off the pain; but still, she wanted to be able to tell the kids about this when she got home.  It had told her it was reprogrammed.  The war had been over for months.  And she was only making small-talk.  If nothing else, chatting would help her relax. 

“Yes.  Undercover work for rebel intelligence.  I have been involved in numerous important missions.  Which I’m not allowed to discuss.  If I were allowed to, I believe that many of them would indeed be classified as _cool_.”

“It’s okay, I don’t need any details.” She almost called it _sir_ but managed to bite back the automatic honorific.  It certainly appeared to be a free droid, if there was such a thing.  Should a free droid be addressed as _sir_?  But surely droids were programmed to id as gender-neutral?  And besides, its vocoder settings were for a masculine timbre.  _Madam_ certainly didn’t seem right.  Nah, best not to open that tin of spinach. “Didn’t mean to intrude.”

“No intrusion was detected.  We’re all getting used to the new world of peacetime, are we not?  My organic counterparts are struggling with certain aspects of this new world even as they welcome others.”

“I bet they are.” _Counterparts_ \- presumably it meant other intelligence operatives.  She’d never thought about it but hells, yes, Nauga was willing to bet a spook would find adjusting to peacetime tough.  Force alone knew how people who did that kind of shit coped with it. 

On the other hand, if they were good enough to have made it through the war, they must be fairly smart. “You been able to give them any pointers?”

“They are unable to have their past etched-off as can be done with me.” The droid shook its head, without moving the rest of its body at all. “I worry about them.” It craned around and narrowed its optical focus to peer at her handiwork. “Please make the surface as smooth as possible.  I may want to have some other symbol engraved there.”

“No problem, sir –“ dammit, it had slipped out – “I mean, no problem.  No offence I hope?”

“None taken.  Calling an individual _sir_ is considered courteous in this culture, is it not?  Then there’s no logical reason for me to be offended.  On the contrary.  And I cannot be misgendered, if that is your concern.”

“Yeah, I guess it was.” It didn’t mind.  And that was a whole can of stinky spinach avoided, thank the stars.  She powered down the engine and lowered the flat-edge burin, brushed a soft cloth over the newly-clear plating. “There you go, that’s the first one all done.  I could put a patination coating on if you like?  Five minutes to apply and it takes an hour to cure.” And because it paid to keep new customers happy even if they weren’t seven feet high and with hands designed to crush bone; “No extra charge.”

“That would be acceptable,” said K-2SO; and after a moment’s consideration “Thank you.”

“No problem, sir.  Same colour?” Stars, she had enough Imperial Dark Grey Tone on the shelf to last her decades now.  She could spare a splash of it for this queer customer.

Except “Are other colours possible?”

“Oh.  Well, yes.  If you want…  Hmm, colours on durasteel, okay, so – it looks like your body is a pretty high-grade alloy…  You could have any shade of bronze.  You could have a classic grey-blue like they use on ships’ hulls.  Rust-red takes pretty well if you want to mess with your organics’ heads, make them think you got left out in the rain.  Or black, purple, most shades of green…”

“Green,” the droid said. “Both my organics like green.  Please put green on my shoulders.”

“Green it is.”

She scoured-down the other shoulder plate and painted the patination mix onto both sides.

It stood up, carefully avoiding the low ceiling. “I have decided what devices I want to be engraved with.  If it’s acceptable to you, I will return here for you to execute the necessary work another day.  Your hands are steady and you have produced a blemish-free surface.”

It was hard to believe already how terrified she’d been, when it walked in.  Nauga grinned up at it. “Thank you, that’s very kind of you.  You know what, I’ve only got one other job today; if you’ve got time, we could do the rest right away.”

“I have plenty of time today.  My humans are on vacation here and I am not greatly entertained by some of their choices of activity.  They are at present engaged in the sport of hot-spring bathing.” K-2SO sounded almost disgusted at the idea. “I can survive in space but water is a corrosive.  I prefer to avoid prolonged contact with it.  Moreover when they return from the hot springs they’ll probably wish to pass some considerable time in sexual activity.  I have the rest of the day.”

It sat down again, holding out one unnaturally-long arm. “I would like a persettia flower on this forearm, just above the wrist coupling, and the outline of a Blas-Tech A180 on the back of this hand.  Also –“ a tiny pause –“do you have a data-pad with drawing software, or a piece of flimsy and a stylus?  I will need to provide references for the other designs I have in mind.” 

“You’re going to need to give me a reference for the blaster as well, I don’t think I’ll do a particularly good job of that without it.  I’ve always taken care not to get too close to those things.  Here, help yourself.” She fished out a small drawing paper block from the under-shelf and passed it to the droid. “Pens are in the jar there.”

 “Very well.”

Its movements were astonishingly quick; it drew the outline of a gun, then that of a human hand, life-sized, complete with lines on the palm.  “I want that on the left front quadrant of my chassis, here.”

“Over your heart?”

“I don’t have a heart, but – yes.  And finally –“ the deft dark fingers drew again, a long line of dots and squares – “I should like these five words on my rear lumbar chassis, just below my signalling antennae.”

This looked like a job for the fine engraving heads; Nauga pulled the tool tray towards her and selected a diamond-tip micro-wheel. “Okay.  What first?”

“I have no preference as to order.”

Silly; she’d almost said _That long text on your back is going to hurt before I’m finished_.  As if it had a nervous system.  But what if they - “Uh, sir?  I should have asked beforehand, but – just to check, this may be a really stupid question, but –“ and oh, shit and kark it, how in the stars did you ask a droid something so – so kriffing intimate? “Uh – do you have any, like, pain receptors I should avoid?”

“My damage sensors are under my own control.  You don’t need to concern yourself.”

“Right.  Great, let’s get cracking, then.”

None of them were tricky jobs; plain outlines from an easy-to-follow template, and simple sigils of what she assumed must be a writing system for binary code.  Less than an hour later Nauga was turning off the power again and laying down her engraver.  She sat back, pulling her mask down, looking with satisfaction at the last thing she’d engraved, the hand-on-heart symbol.  “There you go.  All done.”

_And nice work, though I say it myself._

But what in the stars was she to charge for it?  It was hardly a regular job after all. 

The droid was clearly thinking along the same lines; it opened a small thoracic storage slot, offered her a fifty-credit chip. “Is this adequate?”

“I’m going to be honest with you, I have no idea.  You’re the first droid I’ve ever engraved.  Mostly I deal with –uh, non-sentient subjects.  Heh, well now, I charge eight for a smash-ball trophy and those take about ten minutes, so I guess - thirty for the lot should do.” She pulled over the cash-box and dug around in it.

“The flower is excellent,” the droid told her, examining itself. “And the designs I gave you have been well-executed.  It’s very gratifying to have personal decoration.”

“Oh.  Uh.  Thank you.  You’re welcome.” She handed over the change. “Here you go, twenty creds change.”

“And thank _you_.  For the work and for implying you consider me a sentient.”

“Well, you know,  I - I do a lot of name-plates.  Never thought of myself as a tattoo artist before.  So – thanks for an interesting job, and - good day, sir.”

“Good day,” said K-2SO.


End file.
